Last week, a federal district court in Massachusetts ruled that an ACLU challenge to the government's use of taxpayer dollars to impose religious doctrine on victims of human trafficking may go forward. The decision is a victory for women's health and for the basic constitutional principle that federal dollars cannot be used to favor one religious perspective over all others.

Since April 2006, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) millions of dollars to make grants to organizations that provide direct services to trafficking victims. HHS did this knowing that USCCB prohibits, based on its religious beliefs, grantees from using any of the federal funds to provide or refer for contraceptive or abortion services. We brought a lawsuit on behalf of the members of the ACLU of Massachusetts who object to their tax dollars being used for religious purposes.

Shortly after we sued, the government asked that the court dismiss the case. The government argued that taxpayers couldn't bring the lawsuit. They argued that only, for example, a trafficking victim could raise an objection.

In the small Oklahoma town of Wakita, a prison ministry group is seeking to build a private, "all-Christian" prison. Inmates would be required to take part in "Christ-centered" programming. All of the prison's staff would be Christian believers.

Fortunately, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections appears to have little interest in sending inmates to the contemplated "all Christian" prison. And many municipalities rejected proposals that they host the institution, before Oklahoma's Wakita was approached.

One advocate of the proposed prison explained that the project had not been accepted because of "Satan": "He exists, he doesn't [want] this project to succeed. He is doing everything he can to defeat this project and he is using good people with good intentions. Satan is much more powerful than anybody in this room, he will twist that person around where they think they are doing the right thing in fighting it."

Rather than "Satan," prison systems and communities that have spurned the prison proposal have been rightfully concerned about complying with the Constitution, avoiding legal liability, and not turning their inmates over to an unknown and unproven entity. Wakita, as well as any other towns and states to whom the proposed prison may be brought, should reject the project for the same reasons.